


Getting Rid of the Shovel

by beetle



Series: Always and Ever Homeward [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, Dom/sub Undertones, Dry Humping, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Expect a "Buddy-Paramedics" Interlude fic to this series, Exploring Sexual Dynamics, First Kiss, First Time, Forced Orgasm, Good Advices, Humor, Implied Bain Massani/Jaal Ama Darav, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kink Negotiation, Kolyat and Bain are my Felix and Oscar, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Modern Era, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Past Relationship(s), Past-Bain Massani/Reyes Vidal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Relationship Negotiation, Resolved Sexual Tension, Restraints, Star-crossed, Submission, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Veterans, reunited, soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 05:11:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17016375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: If life is a track, then Scott Ryder’s train was disrupted and derailed early. Repeatedly. And getting it back on that old track may not be an option, even with the help and faith of a determined, almost-was and not-quite-yet boyfriend like Reyes Vidal. Butanotherdisruption, followed by a diversion rather than a derailment, may be enough to get Scott—and Reyes—on-track. Perhaps on a track they can share.





	Getting Rid of the Shovel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleleotas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Medium angst. Allusions to past major character deaths, as wells as past life-threatening injury to protagonist. Mental health issues and healing, including war-related PTSD (“battle-stress”). Altered states, including occasional, but intense psychotic symptoms (hallucinations and delusions); generalized anxiety and anxiety attack. First kiss, awkward first smut. Self-help advice from an obnoxious flirt.
> 
> Title and theme for this fic from the Craig Lounsbrough quote. See end notes for more info.
> 
> The “[Getting Rid of the Shovel](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZSuw00OZ3YtCYpaZPbAz89MhsfjfO3Y)” YouTube playlist.
> 
> This fic is dedicated/gifted to Littleleotas, because if ANY of this is good, that’s where the blame goes <3

**Say "Hi!" to "Scott D. Ryder" :-)**

* * *

 

 

After the Wednesday session of the thrice-weekly Coping With Trauma group lets out—and he’s been faithfully attending every meeting for the just-about-fifteen weeks he’s been staying with Reyes Vidal—Scott D. Ryder is in an unusually buoyant mood.

 

Usually, he leaves the meetings feeling lighter in some ways, though he almost never speaks. Lighter, yes, but also extremely raw and sensitized, in at least as many ways as he feels light and released. Some evenings, it’s all he can do to get back to the haven that is Reyes’s place without having a panic attack or a brief, but definite dissociative fugue. Some evenings . . . he winds up staking-out a quiet, lonely corner at the VA until Reyes’s shift at the hospital ends for that day—or until Reyes can take a break—and he can escort Scott back to the first real home he’s had since he was a small child. Back when Sara and Dad and Mom (and never-to-be-born, baby brother, Sam) had still been alive and safe and happy.

 

On evenings like that, Scott feels so guilty and miserable and fucking _useless_ , he can barely repress tears and even sobs of frustration and futility. At first, Reyes had been alarmed by this obvious upset. Then solicitous and hovering. Then—as he’d realized that hanging around a mortified Scott like a stench, when what Scott had needed was to be alone to get the tears out of his system, then put what passed for his game-face back on—he’d restrained himself to giving Scott space and silent, but demonstrative support. And unhesitating warmth and closeness when Scott had been once again able to tolerate those things.

 

Now, it’s been almost three weeks since Scott’s had to spend an hour sobbing and not-screaming in Reyes’s guest room before being presentable enough to join Reyes for near-nightly, homemade dinners. And ten days since he’s needed an escort home.

 

So, Scott’s feeling brave, today. Well, brave-er. Foolishly so, but . . . braver. Stronger. . . .

 

Happier.

 

And the only thing that would make him happier, _still_ , he realizes, is seeing Reyes’s big smile—the _real, uncomplicated one_ , not the charming, sex-pants one, which Scott also loves at least as much—should _Scott_ show up at the hospital to escort _Reyes_ home.

 

Scott doesn’t even have to take out his sleek smartphone—a _just in case . . ._ _humor me, please, Ryder_ -gift from a very insistent Reyes and on Reyes’s calling and data plan—to check the time. It’s a quarter to nine and thus Reyes’s shift for today should be over in forty-five minutes.

 

Just enough time for Scott to hoof it to the hospital—he’s feeling braver, but still not _quite_ brave enough to dare the Metro on his own, without Reyes to be his focus and safe-zone—with a stop on the way to get Reyes his customary half-caf, medium cappuccino and his own extra-sweet, extra-whip, extra-large hot apple cider.

 

And maybe some Madeleines for them to share.

 

Though, as indiscriminate as Scott’s voracious sweet-tooth is, he really just likes to watch Reyes eat things. Watch the motion and curvature of his mouth, and the pursing and quirking of his lips.

 

And he _really likes_ when Reyes _catches_ him staring and his eyes do that . . . burning-smoldering thing that makes Scott squirm and laugh for no reason then tug his shirt down _low_.

 

In all honesty, Scott’s not even sure what the damn Madeleines actually taste like, other than a keen, deeply-graven _need_ he’s been too skittish to name or explore, just yet.

 

But being crazy and paranoid is difficult enough, without knowingly being lovestruck and horny for someone light-years out of one’s league.

 

Scott’s most of the way to Reyes’s and his favorite coffeehouse, Kona Java, with visions of hot, tart-sweet-creamy cider dancing in his jumpy-buzzing brain. He’s even more looking forward to watching Reyes savor Madeleines with deliberate relish and with the kind of gape-worthy satisfaction Scott hasn’t ever felt even _eating food_ , never mind watching someone else do so.

 

Thus, his usually scattered, difficult to marshal focus is a purposefully-directed laser-beam that knows only its target and goal. For once, he’s neither seeing nor expecting pitfalls, even the usual obstacles waiting to trip and trap an unwary Scott.

 

Scott Ryder is looking neither behind or ahead. He is mindfully, joyfully in the moment, and riding the wave of dreamy-sweet contentment of that moment and its yet-to-unfurl brethren.

 

He’ll never quite remember noticing, then fixating on the pink, chrome mini-pine tree, festooned in red, green, and gold shiny-stuff. He’ll never quite remember that he had, in fact, made it all the way to Kona Java—had paused mere steps from the plate-glass display window next to the entrance, caught by the futuristic Yule tree and decorations. He’ll never quite remember two women exiting the café with packages, giggling and talking, who’d nearly bumped into him and apologized profusely, even as they’d hurried on their way, carrying the scents of espresso and mocha and mint in their wake.

 

He will only remember of this dissociative fugue, how quickly and unexpectedly his mind had checked-out and slunk-off . . . its figurative tail tucked between its legs.

 

Scott is, almost from the moment he lays eyes on the tree, gone-gone-gone. Lost in memories of the last Yule he’d celebrated. Rather, the last Yule he’d noticed _everyone else_ celebrating, tangential to his own increasing spiral into despair.

 

The medical and administrative staff at the AFB had been wearily, but persistently cheerful, and seasonal greetings had been flying around the Base suddenly, but noticeably, five weeks after Scott’s arrival. And even he, zonked out of his broken mind in the hospital ward, and on drugs that’d made everything around him still and fuzzy—of no reality or importance—had been swept up in the preparations and decorations. Despite the constant twinge of his physical injuries, including burns and skin-grafts, and the trauma of his sister’s death almost six months prior, followed by the deaths of his entire fire-team in the same ambush that’d nearly killed Scott. Despite the muffled, but never-ending screams inside his skull that sometimes sounded like his own and sometimes sounded like Sara, or like other brave, lost soldiers he hadn’t been able to save, only outlive.

 

Despite the way he’d still burned, nine weeks and two days after being dragged from a bombed, overturned Humvee, himself on fire and burning—melting in places. Laughing and screaming, sobbing and flailing not for the fiery darkness that had seemed to be consuming his vision, but for the bright, cool light beyond it that would have meant _over and done at last ._ . . and . . . _safe. Home_.

 

Despite all this, Scott had been well-enough to assist in the arrangement of decorations in the hospital wing, so long as the instructions regarding arrangement had been simple, brief, and repeated several times, _very_ slowly.

 

And so long as he was _left alone_ to complete his duties, rather than talked at and coerced into making merry.

 

The varying levels of camaraderie and joy of most of the other patients in his ward of AFB Medical had not been needed or wanted or even tolerable to Scott. Some of them, with their bluff, brave outlooks and oddly upbeat gallows’ humor, had reminded him of Sara so much, that sooner rather than later, they’d eventually wear her face. Smile her smile. Laugh her laugh. And look at Scott as if he’d had every right to be decking the halls and taking solace in vaguely familiar rituals, while she . . . while _Sara_. . . .

 

When this happened, Scott would go cold—so, so cold. And all the meds on the Base, dispensed by kind nurses and orderlies, or well-meaning doctors, couldn’t lower the volume on the screams in his head and the hot-creaking-crushing vise around his ribs and chest, and engulfing his right arm. Compressing his heart as if there’d been anything left to it worth destroying.

 

After attempting to engage Scott in pleasant chit-chat had proved futile—had ended, nearly every time, with panic and fugues at best, and rage, restraint, and sedation, at worst . . . increasingly—everyone from staff to patients had learned to give him a wide berth. To restrict interactions with him to decorations shoved at him and slow directions for where to hang or place them in as few words as possible.

 

There’d been a bunch of those fake mini-trees. All in bright, festive colors, such as common greens and reds and golds. A few in white—even one in hot-pink, at the reception desk for Scott’s ward. That tree had been most often fussed-over by Hanna, one of the civilian aides whose English had been even worse than Scott’s German, but whose brisk warmth and amused patience had been Scott’s entire reason for avoiding her.

 

Despite the curly auburn hair, porcelain-pale complexion, and dark-blue eyes, Hanna had almost _always_ worn Sara’s face. And Scott . . . had long-since been tired of laugh-screaming and heat-vises . . . he’d had his fill very early on. Tired of losing time and bits of himself whenever the kindness or humor or understanding of a fellow patient, a nurse, or a clerk threw shades of his sister at him like grenades and shrapnel he couldn’t effectively dodge.

 

Already shattered, Scott had just been _so tired_ of being continuously blown to even smaller smithereens. Even when his smithereens had been of manageable size, he’d been unable to hold or put them together. After six weeks at the AFB, waiting to be transferred back States-side, Scott’s smithereens had been collectible only by a mortgage-priced Dyson.

 

Or, perhaps, a supermassive black hole.

 

There’d been no chrome mini-trees at the AFB in Germany. Not that Scott would ever recall. But the ubiquitous fake trees had mostly been outrageous colors and tones and decorated in similar taste. And though they hadn’t made much of an impression on Scott beyond their bemusing and almost whimsical appearance—or so he’d thought—the sight of a similarly pink tree, at nearly the exact same time of year is enough to bring several intense moments, memories, and feelings rushing back. At speed and volume, and with particular force.

 

All the _intensity_ . . . and none of the protective, instinctive numbness, silence, and fuzz of being absolutely bugshit. Not anymore. For the first time since the night he’d bumped into Reyes at the VA after nineteen years, the screams that’d been Scott’s constant companion since Sara had been separated from him by a distance so far that Scott would _never_ be able to catch up and never even see her again . . . the screams have been cranked up to ELEVEN.

 

And Scott is no longer crazy enough to sink entirely into rage. Or even sobs.

 

He can feel the screams rising like bile, like gorge, bubbling up as nervous, staggered breaths and random tics and small exclamations of sound. He can feel the heat-vise settle around his chest, ribs, and waist like some eighteenth-century monstrosity of whalebone and canvas. Of barbed wire and shrinking steel.

 

It shoots fire and distant agony down his scarred right arm.

 

_“. . . Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,_

_Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,_

_Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!”_

 

The carol, sung in a chorus of native, as well as horrible Americans-speaking-German-badly accents, has apparently stayed with Scott. Is with him the moment he turns his feet away from Kona Java and keeps him company as he runs. At least as fleet of foot and entrenched in determination, it taunts and chases him: into a future that’s really the past, too, and made of moments that eat away at hope and sanity like acid.

 

Scott Ryder, as he’s done since he was nine, runs for his life. Runs _for_ safety and _to_ the only precious and protective thing left in his life.

 

Fortunately, he’s lately still adjusting to _not_ having to do so, not used-to it and taking it for granted. The instinct is still familiar and easy.

 

In the running shoes Reyes had given him as an early gift for a holiday that’s still almost a week away, yet also almost ten years gone, Scott runs to his truest and maybe only safe-space.

 

Not the VA, but the hospital. That’s where Reyes is finishing up his shift, and _wherever Reyes is_ , is where _Scott_ needs to be. Right now.

 

#

 

Scott’s return to himself isn’t jagged, staggered, and piecemeal, as it so frequently is. Unlike his blank-out _into_ the fugue, _blanking-in_ is unusually immediate.

 

From his past, he arrives in his present in a state of high-agitation, but not quite alarm. Though quite aware of his recent fugue, his impressions of the moments leading up to his flight and of the flight itself are fuzzy and pain-edged, aching and absently frightening. In the wake of it, as ever, Scott is barely able to retain what passes for his composure, never mind immediately tackling whatever underlying flashback and trauma might have triggered the fugue.

 

For several moments, he goggles up at the main entrance to the hospital, with wide, dazzled-uncomprehending eyes then settles completely into what passes for his self-awareness. With a deep, measured, but not exactly steadying breath, he forcibly stills his shakes and shudders and tics. Stops muttering and whimpering.

 

As always with his dissociative fugues—this one hadn’t been at all deep or persistent, even in full-swing—Scott has lost a chunk of time. But a small one, though . . . not even twenty-five minutes of it, he estimates, thanks to his fancy smartphone, when he thinks to check it.

 

The last time he’d lost more than several hours in one chunk is more than six months behind him.

 

When he thinks he can pass muster with the hospital receptionist and security, without getting shuffled off to the emergency psych-ward, he marches stiffly to the large, automatic revolving door. And hopefully right toward the most secure and reliable bit of stability and direction in his life.

 

#

 

Scott makes it most of the way to the Emergency Ward and Triage—over both of which Reyes is a mix of administrative supervisor, facilitator, nanny, _consiglieri . . . and actual registered nurse_ when he has spare moments _—_ before he starts getting twitchy, again.

 

His eyes are wide and he only blinks sporadically . . . erratically. His normally faded-ochre skin-tone, he knows, has turned an ashen grayish/light-brown, thus his complexion looks slightly jaundiced. Like he should be begging for admittance, not searching for a waiting area.

 

He’s shivering and shuddering again—though, if anyone notices it, they likely mistake the reason for the shivering because, as ever, Scott’s rather under-dressed for the season. In a long-sleeved, navy-colored shirt more suited to early fall or late spring, a black denim jacket made for the same seasons, olive-toned cargo pants, and the running shoes Reyes had bought him, he knows he doesn’t look at all prepared for the recent forecasts of snow over the next couple days.

 

But then, of all the things Scott Ryder finds overwhelming and fearsome, two, possibly three inches of snow over a two-day period just doesn’t make the list.

 

By the time he finds the E.R. reception area and Triage waiting-room, he’s all-but scurrying: hugging walls and cleaving to corners. He sidles past the check-in desk, where the receptionist and a security guard are chatting easily. The groups of seats are mostly empty, which is surprising. Scott can count the number of waiting patients on one hand. The check-in nurse’s station, across from the reception desk and just before the swinging doors leading deeper into Triage, is unattended, and Scott bites his lip, wondering where the on-duty nurse is and if they’re one of Reyes’s subordinates.

 

Frowning, he takes a seat in a corner near the water fountain—and, also, with a clear view of the nurse’s station.

 

Less than a minute later, those double doors swing open and a tall, sturdy woman in cartoon-bedecked scrubs and with an air of kind competence and steadiness strides out. As Scott watches, she starts to go into the nurse’s check-in station, with barely a glance around the waiting area. But her eyes tick to Scott, and she instantly about-faces.

 

He does his best not to shrink into his seat as she approaches. She reminds him, for some intangible, achy reasons, of his mother . . . though Scott puts her age at barely thirty. Scott’s memory of his mother is fuzzy, regarding her looks—but that she’d been small, and darker, even, than this nurse. Baby-faced in the same way Scott can still sometimes be and Sara had always been.

 

And Ellen Harlow Ryder had had a bright smile that’d been bigger than the rest of her put together.

 

She’d also been in her early forties—and Alec Ryder had been in his fifties, and Sammy Ryder had been negative-three months old—when the accident had happened.

 

Sara and Scott had been barely nine. . . .

 

Getting an iron-grip on his mind before it slips into another dissociative fugue, this one likely to be more noticeable and disastrous than the token-blip he’d just weathered, Scott blinks slowly up at the nurse when she stops before him and smiles . . . bright and big.

 

 **Roberta Onyango, MSN, RN, APRN, CCRN** her badge-card reads.

 

But for her name, her badge has all the same designations that Reyes’s does.

 

Scott instantly relaxes a little, then shivers and lets his gaze skitter away to the water fountain. It’s a new-fangled one, all stainless steel and near-silent whirring.

 

“Good evening! Have you been helped? I can check you in right now, if you like,” Nurse Onyango offers in a sunny, chipper soprano that’s nothing like the memory of Scott’s mother’s voice—or even Sara’s slightly higher, but similarly low range.

 

All over Nurse Onyango’s scrubs, Spongebob and Patrick cavort with pineapples, and Scott nearly smiles.

 

“Um.” His eyes tick to hers then instantly away. “I’m not having an emergency. Um.” Flushing at _that_ unthinking half-truth, Scott clears his throat and squints at Nurse Onyango’s comfortable shoes. “I’m, um, here to see Reyes? _Nurse_ Reyes. Uhhh, _Nurse Vidal_. His first name is Reyes and he sort of manages Triage?”

 

“Oh!” Nurse Onyango chuckles, warm and wry, and Scott looks up into her heart-shaped, umber-colored face. “You’re Scott, right?”

 

After another startled blink, Scott’s shivers and shudders stop completely, probably from shock.

 

“Ahhhh,” he replies reluctantly, and Nurse Onyango beams, turning toward the check-in and double doors, waving him after her. Scott bolts up and hurries to keep up with her long, but easy stride. She’s about Reyes’s height . . . two-ish inches taller than Scott’s rangy almost-five-eleven.

 

“Captain Micro-Manage was heading to the ambulance bay with Massani, last I saw him. That was about ten minutes ago—they’re probably still out there, with the way Massani chain-smokes: _a lot_ and slower than glaciers!” Nurse Onyango huffs a laugh and swans through the double doors. Scott speed-walks after her, eyes darting everywhere. “Though, glaciers, at least, would be smart enough not to smoke. One assumes.”

 

“Uhhhhh,” Scott says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just trying to not get caught up in the anxiety-causing hustle and bustle of even a slow night at the Triage Center. He’s never liked hospitals, but since returning States-side, with his racked-up score of E.R. and psych-E.R. visits, he’s starting to wonder whose bright idea _coming to this place_ was, anyway.

 

The so-called “hub” of the main area is cubicles and desks and equipment, with medical professionals—including doctors, nurses, EMTs, CNAs, and clerks of all stripes—moving purposefully and adeptly through the most organized bedlam Scott has ever seen. It’s alarming and nerve-wracking . . . but also reassuring. Because even though it looks like concentrated chaos, the fact that there are no urgent or alarmed faces, merely competent and concerned ones, says a lot. The small patient rooms and bays are mostly uncurtained and unoccupied which, for an E.R. and Triage Center, means a very good night.

 

The area, itself, is bright, uncluttered, and cleanly. And there’s a sense of calm occupation that does quite a bit to soothe Scott’s high-alert nerves.

 

Apparently, Reyes runs a tight and well-orchestrated ship. But then, that’s nothing less than Scott would have expected of someone as goal- and solution-oriented—as methodical and deliberate at problem-solving and problem- _preventing_ —as Reyes Vidal.

 

Even back when they’d been two at-loose-ends brats with few friends and fewer prospects, and when Reyes had been just another no-‘count sidling toward the wrongest side of the tracks—a handsome, charming, fiercely clever and determined one, but still—Scott had always been impressed by the way Reyes had of making what he wanted _happen_. With a will and patience that Scott has rarely seen since in any comparable measure.

 

The only person who’d ever had _Reyes_ -levels of determination and fortitude—and then some, actually—had been Sara. But then . . . Sara Ryder had always been in a class of her own. Scott had known that from when they were small and had always looked up to his “big sister,” even though she’d been less than a minute older.

 

She’d never not been his hero and role model. She’d never not been his every aspiration, on the rare occasion he’d been touched by ambition or the need to achieve something of his own.

 

Now, however . . . with Sara nearly ten years gone, and Scott having lived so long without that role model and example—without hope or connection . . . or even clear, uncompromised memories, most days—he’s finally found a locus for those things, once more. For hope and connection and memories to be _made_ , rather than weathered, survived, and lamented. For not just the ability to strive, but the _desire to_. For someone and something reliable, and the unusual, but strong sense of security that here, now, and _at last_ , is a sure-thing. A long-haul friendship . . . _relationship_ that, with neither participant in a war-zone, wouldn’t end in Scott losing everything, yet again.

 

Sara would always be in her own class of amazing—no one would ever eclipse her in Scott’s memory, such as it is, nor in his heart. Such as that is. Sara Ryder is more of a force of nature and undeniable constant than gravity, and the toast always falling jam-side down.

 

But now . . . there’s another space, surprisingly deep and wide, grooming itself for a new resident for the first time since. . . .

 

Since Scott had been newly-fifteen and had just met the boy who would become the _man_ Scott is so anxious to see, always, but especially _now_.

 

“. . . are, right down the hall and out the automatic doors—Massani knows he’s not supposed to smoke on the hospital campus, let alone right near the exits and the ambulance bay. Or on the roof. Or near the service and maintenance exits and hatches. But anytime one of the brass brings it up, he just winks and smiles _that smile_ and suddenly, he’s off the hook without even a verbal. Ugh,” Nurse Onyango says with exasperated amusement and fondness as they turn a quiet corner. She stops and faces Scott suddenly, then points back over her shoulder, the way she’d been leading him, with her thumb. She’s clearly fighting a smile with pursed-tight, twitching lips. “He’s got the kind of blarney—among other things—the Irish would kill for. You’re good from here, right? They’re probably just beyond the doors. If you don’t see ‘em right there, just follow the delightful smell of those unfiltered manure-fires Massani’s killing his lungs with. That’ll take you to ‘em. And the ambulance bay’s only but so big, anyhow.”

 

“Ummm—” Scott hums, then sighs, his brain playing catch-up in completely random order. “Wait— _wh-what’s_ the _other things_ besides the, uh, blarney?”

 

But Nurse Onyango’s already speed-walking past him—presumably back to her check-in station—around the corner with a: “ _Nice to meet you at last, Scott! Have a good one!_ ”

 

“You . . . too? And thanks?” Scott tells the empty hall, his nose twitching at the noticeable scent of exhaust and fried macadam.

 

After a minute of girding himself and wondering whether the _other stuff_ besides this _Massani-person’s_ blarney is something he should be worrying to death, or simply to a potential ulcer, he takes a deep, deep breath and strides quickly down the hall, to the automatic doors.

 

Nurse Onyango is right, it turns out: as soon as the auto-doors slide open, Scott’s hit with the smoky smell of a barn burning down. One that’d been in need of intensive mucking-out.

 

Following his nose, he turns his head to the right upon crossing the threshold, his eyes absently noting ambulances with their teams either preparing for a shift or run, or cleaning up after one. But then his eyes land on Reyes’s familiar, handsome profile: smirking while speaking quietly to a paramedic. Said paramedic is taking a drag off a half-smoked cig, while leaning against the wall of the bay.

 

They’re only about fifteen feet away from Scott. Reyes is standing rather close to the paramedic, almost leaning in toward him in a fashion even Scott would label as _intimate_. And the paramedic, slightly shorter than Reyes, but slightly taller than Scott, is smirking right back, his prominent profile sly and sexy and _handsome_ , because _of course_.

 

Of course.

 

As he watches, eyes wider than wonder—or perhaps horror—the paramedic chuckles and reaches up with his cig-free hand to tug on the shirt-half of Reyes’s green scrubs. Reyes laughs, seeming to lean closer and the paramedic’s eyebrow lifts rather challengingly. . . .

 

“ _I_!” Scott asserts in a creaking squeak of a bleat, with nowhere to go following it, but desperate to stop any further leaning or laughing or . . . anything else. “I . . . didn’t get you a cappuccino! Or Madeleines! Sorry!”

 

Reyes and the paramedic had instantly started—though not stepped apart—and looked over at Scott when he blurted out that first word-sound. Now, Reyes’s smirk changes to a smile that slowly, appreciatively widens and he orients his body and attention toward Scott.

 

The paramedic’s smirk doesn’t change at all, but both those slightly slanted eyebrows lift in curiosity, measuring Scott in the space of a hooded blink, then ticking back to Reyes. The eyebrows lift higher, still.

 

“Oh- _ho_ ,” he— _Massani_ , Scott presumes around a brain full of envy and despair—breathes softly, then grins. Then _laughs_ like someone finally getting the punchline of an obscure joke. Scott can almost relate: he, too, finds himself and everything pertaining to him to be one obscure joke. An Andy Kaufman-style joke, not an _actually funny_ one. “I _seeeeeeee_ , says the blind, but devastatingly dashing paramedic. So much becomes astonishingly clear.”

 

Scott’s brow furrows deeper, even as those brows try to shoot up in utter confusion. “What?” he demands warily. But then, Reyes has closed the distance between them and, as always, Reyes Vidal, up-close and personal, commands all of Scott’s attention and focus. All his forgotten hopes and long-buried dreams. Every atom of his being drowns in every atom of _Reyes_ , starting with those clear-warm green eyes and that _smile_. The one that means relief and joy and anticipation, and all aimed at and centered on _Scott_.

 

“Fancy, seeing you here, Pathfinder. Color me surprised and pleased to see you. As always,” Reyes murmurs, his gaze locked and intent on Scott’s. His strong, gentle hands settle on Scott’s shoulders, then slide down to his biceps, where they squeeze a bit too tight to be gentle, but not tight enough to be possessive. Scott is, as ever, confused by his own confused reaction to that: relief, disappointment, anxiety, jealousy, anger, and sadness.

 

But also, as ever, he steps closer to Reyes, until that quintessential Reyes-scent of expensive aftershave, hand-sanitizer, and coffee clouds his brain like a pleasant fog.

 

“Right back atcha, Charlatan,” he returns breathlessly, rather than with the aimed-for snarkiness. Their nicknames for each other from once-upon-a-teenhood had, within the first day of cohabitation, come back as quickly and easily as if they’d never stopped using them. As if nearly nineteen years hadn’t separated those boys, until boyhood was barely a memory. As if the men they’d become hadn’t been hurt and damaged and _aged_ in ways those naïve boys could never have conceived.

 

Even as he gazes slightly up into Reyes’s eyes, the way his heart seems to come alive and race toward some beautiful, bright finish-line of possibility, Scott isn’t certain all the pain and loss—Mom, Dad, Sammy . . . then Reyes, and eventually _Sara_ . . . the last of his family, and nearly a decade gone, now—is redeemed by having Reyes back so unexpectedly. But . . . he _is_ certain that his heart now beats mainly for one reason. And it has almost nothing to do with keeping his buzzing-nervous-gaunt body ticking along.

 

Reyes moves close, too, until the air that separates them wouldn’t be enough to keep a match lit for more than two seconds. His distracting, green gaze is intent and so full. “I missed you, Ryder,” he says quietly, his thumbs stroking up and down the midnight denim of Scott’s jacket. Through the cool material, Scott can feel the heat of those thumbs and the hands they’re attached to.

 

“I, um . . . I missed you, too, Reyes.” Scott shivers then smiles fleetingly. Reyes’s smile deepens, warms, turns wistful.

 

“How was your day?”

 

“Not completely terrible. But not the best.” Scott shrugs and sighs. Then smiles again, this time for a bit longer. “Until now.”

 

“And people say _I’m_ a consummate bullshit-artist.” Reyes is smirking wryly, but the flicker in his eyes is utterly sincere and hopeful-longing in a way Scott doesn’t know how to deal with anymore. The boy he’d once been would have known _exactly_ what to do with such a look and such closeness—such _intimacy_.

 

The man he is _now_ simply blushes deeply enough that Reyes can probably tell, then looks down. A stuttered exhale escapes him in audible fits and starts. “Among other things, I’m guessing. Um. How was _your_ day?”

 

“Well, it started out rather delightfully, with a certain Pathfinder assisting me with making breakfast. Then I watched said Pathfinder _devour_ said breakfast—of chocolate chip waffles, six slices of rye toast slathered in raspberry jam, a quarter of a pound of bacon, and a Greek omelet—almost singlehandedly. Like a small, but motivated horde of locusts,” Reyes says, grinning when Scott blushes deeper and chuckles. “ _That_ part of my day was assuredly the best part, so far. What came after . . . commute and work . . . not as onerous as it could have been, I suppose. But it definitely wasn’t _good_ again until about seventy-eight seconds ago.”

 

“Seventy-eight seconds, huh?” Scott asks, doubtful, but pleased. _Reyes shrugs_ , elegant and unoffended.

 

“Well, eighty-six, now,” he replies serenely. “One quickly grows used to accurately keeping short spans of time in the medical field. If only because the damn blood pressure machines break down or malfunction so often.”

 

Scott smirks. “Nurse’s life, yo. You didn’t choose it: it chose you.”

 

“Coincidentally, that’s the motto I have ornately tattooed across my shoulder-blades. It’s very attractive.” Reyes smirks back and sighs. But _his_ sigh is contented, if rather weary.

 

“You _do_ realize I’ve seen you shirtless, right? Recently, too? And as of three days after Turkey Day, no such tattoo existed on your shoulder-blades, Charlatan.” Scott rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. _Grinning_ ,  now. Reyes winks.

 

“Yes, well, that was almost _four entire weeks ago_ , Pathfinder! Practically an eternity! A lot can change in four _days_ , never mind four weeks, yes? Or almost four months?”

 

His smirk warming and settling back into that smile, he wraps his right arm around Scott’s waist. Before he can even urge Scott closer, Scott’s already there. Leaning into Reyes, forehead resting on Reyes’s shoulder, suddenly drained, himself. The anxiety-energy that’d carried him from Kona Java—through the hinterlands of a moderate but draining fugue—has suddenly absconded with Scott’s usual edgy, apprehensive wariness, leaving behind a feeling of safety and security and _home_ that’s so complete and unassailable, tears spring to his eyes.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees, as Reyes’s right hand splays on the small of his back. The other hand slides back up to Scott’s shoulder, then up and in, until it’s a heavy-warm, reassuring weight on the back of Scott’s neck. Any last little lingering bit of fear and panic bubbling behind the spread of calm that always persists in Reyes’s presence, is eradicated. Scott relaxes in Reyes’s embrace with a near-silent sound of gratitude. Reyes hums and holds him tighter, and Scott only relaxes more and calms more, even as his _heart_ races toward that end-game— _forever_ -game?—of shining possibilities. “A lot _can_ happen in almost-four-months. And h-has.”

 

“Hmm,” Reyes sighs again, sounding just as relaxed as Scott feels. The hand tracing slow, concentric circles and figure eights a perfectly respectable distance above Scott’s ass is lulling and right. The one on Scott’s neck and scritching his nape soothingly is every good thing in the world and for several adjacent ones.

 

His arms wrap around Reyes’s waist, as earnest, tight, and agenda-free as any kid’s.

 

This, all of it, is the result of almost-four-months of adjusting and adapting and learning to trust. An eyeblink-eternity’s worth of self-improvement. And Scott is utterly content for things to always be this way. . . .

 

. . . except for the increasingly loud curiosity about what would happen if, just once, he turned his face up toward Reyes’s during one of these embraces. What would happen if he nuzzled . . . or even _kissed_ his way up to Reyes’s chin? Or his cheek? Or his _mouth_?

 

What would happen if . . . if Reyes _let him_?

 

Scott Ryder is not-so-suddenly inclined to explore that possibility, and any others that might result from it. . . .

 

“I suppose if I wait for an introduction from _either_ of you heart-eyed bastards, I’ll be late for my goddamn shift!” a voice notes from behind Reyes, amused and intrusive. Scott instantly tenses again: not entirely, but more than the total relaxation of mere moments ago. “Rey, I already know. But _you_ I’ve never met. Your cuteness precedes you, however—Rey _wasn’t_ bullshitting, for once! _I’m_ Bain Massani, and _you_ are the most adorable little duck I’ve ever seen this far from a pond, Scott Ryder!”

 

Scott stiffens in Reyes’s arms and Reyes tenses around him, before relaxing, then loosening his embrace to lean back. He studies Scott’s face and smiles apologetically. “You . . . up to meeting a friend of mine?”

 

“Hopefully,” Scott says through gritted teeth, after a pause that’d probably been just long enough to be telling. Reyes grimaces and looks as if he might call Scott on that baseless optimism, but then smiles and nods once. One of the more difficult adjustments they’d weathered since the inception of their roomie-dom had been them both learning to trust and not question Scott’s every decision. Seemingly an easier feat for Reyes than it had been and still is, for Scott.

 

At this moment, at least, he’s _aware_ that he’s probably making a dumb, super-unhelpful decision, rather than making that decision on autopilot, by rote and as part of what’s often fast-track automation.

 

 _Scott Ryder_ is making a conscious attempt to be socially accessible and friendly. Though he doesn’t expect to ever-again be a fan of it, he’ll persevere until he can’t because Reyes deserves better than a . . . whatever Scott is to him, who’s always scuttling away from social interactions like a spooked crab.

 

“Yeah. Um. I really like Nurse Onyango. She’s a nice person. So, I think I’m ready to roll the dice once more,” Scott declares, and Reyes grins.

 

“Roberta’s . . . a character. But yes, an incredibly kind one. She always asks after you, so I’m sure she was very happy to finally meet you.”

 

“That’s what she said, yeah. You . . . _tell people_ about me,” Scott realizes suddenly, like a gut-punch. But one maybe made of unicorn-giggles. Reyes’s grin becomes a wry smile, but his green gaze is as steady and direct as ever.

 

“So far, only that I reconnected with an . . . old friend, and that we’re now . . . cohabitating.” Reyes shrugs again. “A few bits and bobs of anecdotes—mainly ones about your attempts to burn down the apartment building while making breakfast solo. And how handy you are at rewiring things throughout the building that our cheapskate landlord apparently wired . . . poorly.”

 

“ _Unsafely_ ,” Scott corrects, glowering. “He should’ve let a professional electrician handle construction and repairs for the wiring of an _entire building_ , no matter how small. _I’m_ not a professional, either, but at least I know how to make sure a building is _less_ likely turn into Dante’s _Inferno_ , because a tenant decided to listen to the radio but forgot to turn off a ceiling light in the kitchen, first.”

 

Reyes chuckles, holding him tighter for a few moments before shifting them to face a smirking and eyebrow-waggling Bain Massani, who’s been waiting _mostly silently_ for them to surface, acknowledge him, and let him enter their . . . dynamic. “’Leave it to the professionals’ . . . I’m sure Mr. Oberlin would say the same about your attempts at making breakfast. And about that one time you tried to make dinner.”

 

“Which we agreed to never speak of again,” Scott replies grimly, looking this Bain Massani over. He really is ridiculously attractive in a strong-featured, but uncommon way . . . not to mention rakish, and vaguely sinister. Like someone who should’ve gone into Bond-esque villainy, or . . . seventeenth century piracy and privateering. Never mind the black-and-day-glo paramedics’ uniform, Massani wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of a bodice-ripper romance novel, a graphic novel about super-everyone . . . or some damn science fiction tale of interstellar bounty-hunters and adventurers.

 

 _Some_ damn thing.

 

And the idea that this guy might have ripped _Reyes’s_ bodice, so to speak—or might be plotting to—makes Scott’s brain boil. Makes his chest feel hot and creaky and half-crushed, the way it hasn’t in nearly two months.

 

He can only hope that the rage doesn’t make it to his fists. Reyes has been pretty accommodating of Scott’s _many_ eccentricities, but Scott has a feeling that if he puts this Bain Massani in Triage or Critical Care, he’ll lose Reyes and any hope of _more_ with him faster than half a blink.

 

“Scott Ryder, this is my coworker and one of my . . . closest and oldest friends, Bain Massani. Bain, this is my . . . Scott. The first friend I ever had.” Reyes breaks their embrace to stand next to Scott, but with his right arm still around Scott’s waist.

 

Bain’s smirk widens, and he saunters closer, flicking his three-quarters done coffin-nail out at the bay. When he’s close, enough to offer his hand, he does, giving Scott an appreciative once-over, as well. “ _Weeeellll. Hullo, there_ , Reyes’s Scott. Lovely to meet you, at last. Especially after hearing about you nonstop for nearly four months—and off and on for about six years before that. It’s nice to have proof you actually exist.”

 

“Even Reyes Vidal couldn’t create this much awesome entirely from whole cloth, Mr. Massani,” Scott says, deadpan and inflectionless as he takes Bain’s hand. It’s square and large, rough and dry. But blunt-fingered, like Scott’s. “Not as far as _I_ know, anyway.”

 

Bain winks and for a moment, Scott gets vertigo because it’s almost like looking at Reyes. They don’t bear any physical resemblance to each other, but their style of charm is so similar—in that way, at least—they could be twins.

 

Which thought is _quite_ disturbing . . . for about four seconds. When it stops being disturbing and starts being intriguing, Scott clears his throat and yanks his freed hand away, tucking it under his other arm as if stung. Bain chuckles.

 

“Smart qualifier, that ‘as far as I know.’ A lot can change, even in a little time, or so I’ve recently heard mentioned.” When Scott blushes, Bain’s eyebrows lift. “But you two are reconnecting after . . . what, twenty years apart?”

 

“A little over nineteen,” Reyes amends quietly, his arm around Scott tightening as he tugs Scott a little closer, still. Not that he needs to tug much: Scott’s always happy to move closer to Reyes.

 

A fact which Bain seems to be inferring rather easily, his widening smirk as knowing as it is amused. “Bloody hell. Even watching you two for just a few minutes makes me wonder how you survive an entire workday apart, let alone two decades. Huh.” Raking his gaze down and up Scott again, that smirk turns into a surprisingly _friendly_ and approving grin. “If _you’re_ even half the bloody spectacular implied by his endless and bloody adorable Scott-stories . . . then I’m glad you’ve found each other, again. Couldn’t be _more chuffed_ , really.”

 

Surprised, Scott blinks. Bain waggles his eyebrows comically, then winks again, and chuckles. “At any rate, I’ve got a shift to start in a few minutes. And you two . . . don’t you have a badly-wired flat to get back to?”

 

“Indeed.” Reyes snorts and half-turns toward Scott, who fully turns to Reyes. His smile is uncertain, but Reyes returns it tenderly, if a bit regretfully. “There’s no need for us both to hike back to my office. Not when I’ll be about five minutes tidying and locking up—ten, at most. You’ll . . . be alright waiting here?” Reyes nods his head very slightly in Massani’s direction. “Or I can walk you back to the waiting room, and Roberta, if you’d prefer. . . .”

 

“That’s—I’ll be fine here, Reyes.” Scott’s smile firms, and he leans closer again, then away, while blushing. Even though he hates this dance, it’s become very familiar. “End-of-shift routines are sacred and don’t need to be profaned by outsider-eyes.”

 

“Where I’m involved, _you_ are never an outsider, Pathfinder.” Reyes’s voice is a soft, but slightly hoarse rumble and Scott shivers. He starts to lean in again, but stops himself even as Reyes, too, starts to lean in. His arm around Scott tightens again . . . then loosens, falling reluctantly away. He gives the impression of taking a large step back, even though he hasn’t. “Anyway, I’ll be back in five, or possibly ten minutes. No more.”

 

“Affirmative, Charlatan,” Scott mumbles, looking down as Reyes’s smile turns wry, bordering on rueful, and he steps past Scott and toward the door, with a nod for Bain. Heart hammering and throat constricting—mouth gone parched—Scott doesn’t consciously decide to reach out for Reyes as he passes. He doesn’t consciously grab Reyes’s broad shoulders and the cool, synthetic cloth of his green scrubs.

 

And he certainly doesn’t _consciously_ pull Reyes to him again, closer than they’ve been since the night they reconnected—and hard enough that the other man stumbles a little.

 

Yet, somehow, there they are. Reyes feels solid and sturdy against him. The hands that clasp Scott’s biceps to steady and be steadied are familiar and warm, possessive and _strong_.

 

There are many, many questions in those bright green eyes, but far more hope and yearning. Scott doesn’t have the right words—never has and likely never will—but he definitely has an answer. For the questions and hope and yearning which shine and have been shining out of Reyes’s eyes. Never hidden, but never overbearing, either. To those, Scott Ryder has an answer, at last.

 

He yanks Reyes closest of all and down into a clumsy, off-center, dry-lipped buss that’s probably nothing to write home about for Reyes. But for Scott . . . it’s the culmination of two decades of pining and regret and wishful thinking.

 

Reyes, for his part, doesn’t just go willingly, but shows some initiative halfway into the yanking, and practically from the start of the kiss. He lets Scott press their mouths together, nervous and too forceful, before huffing a soft, fond sigh and wrapping his arms around Scott tight-tight-tight.

 

Startled, himself, Scott pulls away, too flustered to even deepen the kiss he’s been waiting more than half his life to share. His entire face is burning with mortification and self-reproach and he can’t even open his eyes to meet Reyes’s probably horrified gaze. “I—I— _sorr_ —”

 

But the rest of his apology is muffled by Reyes’s mouth on his own, soft and sweet, but urgent and intent, too. He doesn’t hesitate to part his lips then tease Scott’s open with his tongue, a rumbling groan of relief and restrained hunger escaping his throat to then make the nerves in Scott’s teeth quiver.

 

After that, but for tingling-burning-drowning intensity—and some whimpers that must be Scott’s, because Reyes’s voice is markedly deeper than _that_ —Scott loses track of everything, other than throwing his arms around Reyes’s neck to _hold on_ because his knees have gone utterly unreliable.

 

“Well. _This_ is a rather unexpected prelude to tonight’s shift, I must say,” Bain Massani notes, sounding both wistful and amused. Though definitely more amused. Scott freezes, and though Reyes doesn’t, he grudgingly ends the kiss with small, lingering, fervent busses that do nothing for the state of Scott’s stupid knees. And his Jello-legs. And all his other body-parts that are being problematic or downright unruly.

 

Reyes sighs again on Scott’s mouth, regretful and frustrated, and leans their foreheads together. The hand that’d migrated to Scott’s ass squeezes lightly, but unmistakably and promising . . . then drifts back up to the small of Scott’s back. It feels heavy and _right_ and like some of the jangled, mixed-up puzzle pieces that make up one Scott D. Ryder have somehow fallen into place perfectly, interlocking and making a much-muddled picture significantly clearer.

 

“You,” Reyes whispers on Scott’s tingling-wet-trembling lips, pausing for a few moments before continuing so softly, even Scott can barely hear him. “ _This_ and _you_ , Scott Ryder, are certainly the best surprises and greatest treasures of my life. Well-worth every year it took to get here, and every year—before we met and after—that we’ve spent apart.”

 

Scott gasps, startled, and is still gaping a minute later when Reyes leans back, then reluctantly lets him go. But that gaze, as green as demon-fire and envy, doesn’t let go of Scott at all. And Scott’s taken by an eerily comforting certainty that now . . . it never will. Not ever again.

 

“I’ll make it quick. I promise,” Reyes says, smiling small and happy, before smirking: crooked and sly. Like he had once upon a childhood in this same town which, Scott now realizes, he no longer hates. In fact, it feels more like home than anyplace has since his parents died twenty-five years ago.

 

Then _Scott smiles, too_ , because he’s _home_. He’s facing the prospect of being with Reyes in a new and exciting way, and . . . for the first time since Sara died, he doesn’t feel totally alone in the universe.

 

“You’d _better_ make it quick,” Scott manages, breathless and obvious and not at all bothered by that. His hands, resting lightly on Reyes’s shoulders, clench and release several times, before he, too, lets go. Though not for long and not in any way that counts. “Go clock out so we can head home, Nurse Vidal. The sooner, the better.”

 

That smirk deepens, as does the warmth and heat and intensity in Reyes’s green eyes. “As you command, Pathfinder.”

 

Scott laughs a little, red enough about the face that it might actually be visible, and still trying to catch and keep a breath. Reyes leaning in to steal another brief, but sweetly dirty kiss doesn’t help Scott’s breathing along at all but . . . breathing suddenly seems quite overrated.

 

“Five minutes, even if I have to threaten write-ups for anyone who stops me with make-work problems. Even if every file and bit of paperwork in my office bursts into flames,” Reyes promises, ending the kiss suddenly, his normally modulated, teasing voice dropped low and growling with frustration. His lips are soft torture as they move against Scott’s own.

 

“Wow—insubordinate subordinates and combusting paperwork? What kinda hospital are you people running, here?” Scott huffs and pants, then joins Reyes in a terse, thwarted chuckle. Reyes’s hand clenches and trembles. Its respectable distance above Scott’s ass—but still a bit low on the small of Scott’s back—lessens tantalizingly. Scott opens his eyes and gazes up into Reyes’s as best he can from almost no distance. “But I agree: eight thousand percent. Let the paperwork burn. And write-ups for _everyone_ who stops you with a fake problem and who _isn’t_ Nurse Roberta.”

 

“That goes without saying,” Reyes agrees, then cuts off an unhappy groan as he lets go of Scott and moves away—backs toward the automatic door and inside the corridor leading back to the Triage Center. His eyes are bright and hot and anchored on Scott’s flushed, overheated face. “Five, or fewer.”

 

“I’ll be right here. Not goin’ anywhere,” Scott reaffirms, and it wins him Reyes’s crookedest, least-guarded smile. It shortly turns back into a smirk as the automatic doors start sliding shut between them.

 

“Don’t cause _too much_ trouble, Massani,” he warns, his eyes still on Scott, hot and hungry.

 

Massani, who’d drifted closer to Scott, close enough to see into the corridor, snorts as Reyes turns and double-times it back to Triage. “I’d advise the same, Vidal, but I think it’s far too late for _that_! Cheers, you shady arsehole!”

 

A second later, Reyes is gone around the turn at the other end of the hall, but Scott doesn’t doubt he’d heard Massani’s last salvo. Nor does he doubt there are layers of meaning to it that he, himself, is not and will never be privy to.

 

Frowning, now, Scott’s shoulders slump. He doesn’t mind _not_ knowing everything about Reyes. But he _does_ mind that _Bain Massani_ knows so much _more_ about Reyes—the man Reyes has grown into.

 

The person Reyes is _now_ might be someone for whom this Bain Massani is far more suited, whether the relationship is friendly, or . . . more-ly.

 

“Awww, well, isn’t _this_ adorbs? A duckling makin’ calf-eyes at a Great White—and gettin’ jelly-fish over a flirtatious laughin’-bloody-hyena,” Massani purrs around another cigarette as he lights it. Scott scowls at him and Massani snorts out smoke and snickers. “Looks like the entire bloody Discovery Channel’s turned out, _today_!”

 

The ensuing chuckles are both rough and smooth, amused and approving. And despite the odd, harsh-soft nature of the sound, it’s as captivating and unique and attractive as everything else about the unfairly dashing medic.

 

Scott asks himself, rather harshly, if he really thinks he stands any kind of chance with Reyes, once the bittersweet, nostalgia-points have all been spent, and reality and familiarity have brought normally pragmatic Reyes down off his rose-colored cloud?

 

Does he _really_ think that?

 

Scott’s shoulders sag as he looks, again, through the automatic door. As if hoping to catch an afterimage of Reyes’s tall, strong, _together_ figure through the almost-spotless glass. He imagines Reyes idly comparing _this Bain-guy_ to the broken-lost calamity currently residing in his spare bedroom. The term _night and day contrast_ doesn’t seem phrase-enough to describe the conclusion of that thought-exercise. Which is one of the most depressing realizations Scott’s had in his whole life. If he hadn’t stood a chance with Reyes at fifteen—arguably the last and best year of the old-Scott’s life—then what chance could he possibly stand _now_ , nearly twenty years later, jittery and nervous and crazy as a shit-house rat?

 

Against this . . . _Bain_ -guy?

 

“Look at you—you’re breakin’ the heart I don’t even have!” Massani exclaims, sounding put-out but still amused. “Listen, will you make note of a few friendly observations from an arsehole with a well-hidden soft-spot, Little Duck? Then do with said observations as you will?”

 

Scowling harder, Scott looks away from the door and empty corridor that leads back to the Triage Center and Emergency Room. He hopes that Reyes’s office is close and that whatever take-home work he might need to bring is already consolidated into one grab-n-go pile.

 

The game-face he levels on Reyes’s . . . colleague and apparently the world’s most sexy paramedic, is ticking in several places, but otherwise stone-blank. “Observations?”

 

“Mm. Bain Massani’s First Rule of Holes, my friend: When you’re already in one, if you’re smart enough to stop digging, you’ve still only done _one-third_ of the job, right? Right.” Scott watches Massani stroll away from the entrance, then follows. When they stop, about twenty feet from the closing door, Massani smirks out at the ambulance bay with benevolent contemplation, then takes a drag off his coffin-nail. He’s a man who’s not only in his element in this confusing, nonstop hospital-world, but utterly at home in it. Even the garish fluorescent lights from the lit hospital signs don’t wash him out, only make his saturnine, wolf-keen features even more intense and dangerous-attractive. The light doesn’t seem to leaven his shadow-dark eyes, only make their darkness brighter—glittering. It doesn’t lend the same sort of jaundiced tone to Bain’s complexion that it does to Scott’s slightly darker one.

 

It’s unfair, and never more so than when Massani glances at Scott, and his dangerous-sexy smile widens, and becomes kind, as well. Friendly. “And sure, _climbin’ out’s_ the third everyone makes the most noise and fuckin’ ceremony outta. But in the end, even that’s not the _important_ third.”

 

“Important third?” Scott echoes warily, flushing and glad the awful lighting is more than enough to hide it. Though, if anyone could wild-guess that Scott Ryder is blushing . . . it’d probably be Bain Massani.

 

“The _most importantest_ , yeah.” Another drag, this one ponderous and not quite dramatic, sees Massani’s eyes tick back out across the bay, before coming right back to Scott, solemn as a Sunday morning. “Also, the toughest, trickiest, _most painful_ third,” he goes on, his smile gentling to a commiserative sort of grimace as he looks Scott over with assessment that’s surprisingly gentle, this time. “ _Gettin’ rid of that goddamn shovel_ , yeah? And for keeps.”

 

Scott can only gape for nearly a minute, during which Massani winks and elbows Scott, then takes yet another long drag, followed by a slow, savoring exhale. The thick plume of smoke drifts lazily up toward the overcast night sky. “See, I’m thinkin’ that gettin’ rid of that shit-bird shovel’s _your_ Everest, Little Duck. And there’s no shame in that. A shovel’s a good goddamn tool when you’re diggin’ holes. But it’s a supremely _shit_ tool when you decide to build a ladder, if you get me.”

 

Scott blanches and his prior breath in rushes back out of him in a whoosh. “Yeah,” he agrees, breathless and a bit weak with a realization he doesn’t fully recognize or understand, but which he _feels_ like a godsmack. “I guess that makes sense.”

 

“Glad you agree, cute-stuff! Not just because you seem like a nice-enough fella, if a bit twitchy. But because Rey . . . Reyes is my best friend. One of the few I didn’t manage to scare off or permanently _piss off_. And he, well . . . I think I serve him in the same capacity. It’s a given we’re both arseholes, thus, we don’t judge each other too harshly for that. He’s shady and manipulative, and I’m fickle and selfish. Yet, somehow, we remain fast friends. I trust him with my life and hope that someday, he’s also able to feel that way for _someone_ , at least. And if not me, then definitely _you_. You’ve already been through and overcome so much just to be with him. I doubt there’s anything you _wouldn’t_ do for him. _That’s_ what Rey deserves—as do you, if you’re willing to be and do all that for him.”

 

Scott’s formerly revelation-slack mouth had pursed while Massani spoke, but now, it releases when he sighs heavily. He meets Massani’s dark, keen gaze and squares his shoulders. He doesn’t want to ask, but he _has_ to know. He’s pretty sure, just going on Massani’s melancholy expression, that he _already_ knows. “Are you . . . in love with him, Mr. Massani? Do you want to be with Reyes?”

 

Massani smiles, wry and unoffended. “Nah, to both, Scott Ryder. Don’t mistake me: Rey and I had our time for a while. Friends-with-bennies, on and off. It was what it was and lasted for longer than anything else I’d ever had, up to that point. Lasted until it no longer worked for reasons you can ask Rey about, if you’re curious. But the friendship . . . _that_ lasted longer. Grew deeper. Rey’s a _good_ man. Far better than most people, including himself, think. And he became an even better friend, once I’d . . . moved on sexually and romantically. I won’t lie and say that was the easiest thing I ever did. But I did it. Found a great guy _and_ let him put a bloody ring on it, of all things.” He snorts and holds up his hand. A chunky, etched gold band shines quietly on his ring-finger. “Nearly two years wearin’ this goddamn thing and it hasn’t once chafed. Go figure. The gold must be that fancy, hypoallergenic stuff.”

 

Scott’s brows lift, and he opens his mouth to say . . . he’ll never know what, since a laugh burbles its way out first. Massani’s response is a sly-and-daffy smile. “Hell, but you’re so damned sweet and earnest and _corruptible_ , Little Duck! You’re makin’ me _damned_ glad I married a man who’s down with conditional, _shared_ non-monogamy.” After waggling his eyebrows, Massani chuckles when Scott blushes and stammers. “Aw, don’t worry your pretty, little duckling-head about it, sweetheart. I won’t cross the line between obnoxious flirt and smarmy boor unless and until you and Rey approach _us_. Anyway, back to my observations and their gist, yeah?”

 

“Ummm. . . .” still gaping and blushing, his mouth working wordlessly, Scott doesn’t even have the wherewithal to stop Massani from getting to that gist.

 

Seeming pleased with that, the paramedic goes on: “Rey’s been in love with you for literally half his life. And now, you’re back. In need of the same second chance _he needs_. A soft place to fall and all that greeting card-stuff. Someone who knew you when you were young. Young- _er_ ,” he amends, then grins cheekily. “You’ve both got that second chance, now. A _golden one_. More than most people ever luck into. So, use it. _I’m_ not after Rey. I’ve got a guy of my own, and I love him more than I thought I was capable of. Even if I didn’t, I couldn’t steal Reyes’s heart from _you_ even back when he thought he’d _never_ see you again. Now that you’re back . . . well. Zero sums, and all. Besides which, I care about Rey too much to try and wreck something he’s been pining for, for _half his life_. So, there’ll be no interference from me. Your path to him is clear. All _you_ have to do—and I’m aware that it ain’t easy, but few things worth doin’ are—all you have to do is _get rid of the bloody shovel_. Start makin’ or findin’ tools for building good ladders.”

 

A beat passes, then a bunch more just like it, too. Once again, Scott can only gape and struggle even for thoughts, let alone word-sounds or actual words.

 

Massani’s watching him closely but amiably, smiling a little, rather than smirking. And Scott . . . feels like a fool for his earlier assumptions, despite now knowing that they’d been founded in what’d turn out to be fact, no matter how _used-to-be_. The reactions it’d spawned—transparent jealousy, insecurity, and immaturity, along with Scott’s usual cocktail o’ crazy—are mortifying, in hindsight. Or will be, once Scott’s brain’s managed to process more of what Massani’s just said.

 

Not to mention once he’s processed the fact that Bain Massani isn’t his rival, nor is anyone else, if the man’s to be believed. No one is standing between Scott and Reyes.

 

Other than Scott, himself, of course.

 

But that’s a far too large Everest to climb, just yet. Even the mortification of being so transparent to Reyes’s ex-lover is far more pleasant a prospect. Though he’s quite certain that when the mortification regarding _that_ really hits, it’s going to feel like a clothesline-piledrive combo. Even just the realization that that’s waiting ahead makes him wince and groan. Massani, still watching him, chuckles in more wry commiseration.

 

“You’re ridiculously adorable, but especially when you’re flustered and embarrassed. Rey was probably a cocky, snarky little shit, even as a teenager, but . . . I’ll bet meeting _you_ knocked him right on that fabulous arse, first thing. Fuck, _I’m_ findin’ it difficult to stay upright, myself.” After a wink and a brow-waggle, Massani sighs. “Anyway, no need to be embarrassed about whatever you are or were feeling regarding . . . all this. It’s part of the human condition. And you wouldn’t be feeling it if Reyes didn’t mean so much to you, so, I approve. Just so long as you’re not takin’ a swing at the ol’ mug, that is. I’m ninety-six-point-seven percent certain hubby only married me for my handsome face. And scars look so much more _bad-ass_ on him, anyway. Sexy as _fuck_.”

 

Massani makes a pouty-frustrated face and groans, as well. Then sighs again, muttering about _bloody double shifts_ and having _goddamn blue balls for another nine hours_. Scott finds himself huffing, then grinning. Then laughing, if briefly. “Eh. You could pull off the scarred-look, too.”

 

“Maybe. _Really_ don’t wanna, though,” Massani grumbles, shrugging and flicking his cigarette butt into the lot. He casts a considering look Scott’s way and smirks again. It’s smug, but friendly. Satisfied. “I think you’ll do alright for yourself, Duckling. And for Rey. You’ve got my best wishes and hopes. You’ll think about what I said, yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Yes,” Scott says, coming over solemn and nodding. Massani’s smirk relaxes into a smile again.

 

“Good man! And if you take none of that shite to heart, you’ll take to heart that Rey loves you, yes?” He searches Scott’s eyes intently, his stare gone suddenly piercing and intense. “That whatever else may be stacked against you two, you _love each other._   You’re willing to put in the effort it takes to make what you have—or could have— _work_. And all that hope, desire, and determination you share? _It counts_. For a lot. For _fucking everything_.”

 

Scott is left blinking back sudden tears and swallowing around a lump that’s probably his heart . . . _overwhelmed_ but also nodding. “I—I hear you,” he finally manages, then clears his throat. “I’m still processing . . . a lot of things, but I’ll try to keep that in mind, Mr. Massani. And in heart.”

 

“That’s all I ask. For both your sakes,” Massani’s serious expression relaxes once more and he winks. “Also, _Mr. Massani_ is my dear, ol’ dad, Duckling. To you, I’m just Bain. Though, I can think of a few other names and titles I wouldn’t mind you callin’ me by.”

 

Though still extremely flustered, Scott lets his eyebrows lift just a touch and remains as deadpan as possible. “Uh-huh. About this _duckling-thi_ —” they both jump a little when Bain’s hailed by his last name from an ambulance near the distant south arm of the wing. Scott can see a tall, lanky paramedic with wide, dark eyes and strong, stubborn features. He’s wearing an _intense_ scowl and waving for attention. Bain’s attention, it’s clear.

 

Muttering, Bain puts away a fresh cig he’s just freed from the pack, waves back, then shouts good-naturedly: “ _Hold your goddamn horses, Krios! Shift’s not for another three-whole-bloody-minutes!_ ”

 

Krios shouts back: “It _started_ seven minutes ago, shit-stick! Move your ass!”

 

“Move _yours_ , you nitpickin’ nag!”

 

“Die in a fucking fire!”

 

“In the fires of your undying admiration and love, my friend! Always!”

 

This _Krios_ flips Bain the bird and shouts something back in a language that’s not English. And not at all complimentary. And definitely not PG-13, if _Scott’s_ any judge. But Bain just laughs heartily, waves again, and shifts his amused and appreciative attention back to Scott. “Goddamn Kolyat. _Love_ that bastard. Now, what were _you_ sayin’, angel-face?”

 

Scott rolls his eyes again and manages not to grimace. “I was gonna say that hopefully I can be just _Scott_ , to you. _Bain_.”

 

The paramedic’s lips twitch, and he bows shallowly. His expression’s gone suspiciously innocent. “Right-o. It shall be as my _lovely_ Little Duckling commands,” he agrees with scrupulous, trolling indulgence. Then, after a jaunty salute, he jogs off to his waiting shift and associated duties, leaving Scott gaping and incredulous yet again.

 

#

 

“On the ride home, you were distracted and silent. Even for you, Pathfinder,” Reyes notes as they step into his dimly-lit apartment.

 

As always, he’s waved Scott in ahead of him not out of mere graciousness, but because, as he says, _Even at the ends of weeks that feature doubles and back-to-backs at the hospital, I don’t think I appreciate stepping into this apartment nearly as much as you do. Even if you’ve only been gone for an hour._

 

To which Scott usually mumbles some version of: _Be it ever so humble, Charlatan_.

 

Though, even if one doesn’t take into account Scott’s near-decade of increasingly frequent spells of homelessness and destitution, Reyes’s apartment is hardly _humble_.

 

Technically, it’s the entire third floor of a large, old townhouse that’s been converted into separate units. Reyes’s unit is huge, remodeled and chock full of mod-cons, and possessed of an airy, open floor plan in which even claustrophobic Scott had felt immediately comfortable.

 

The walls of the apartment are clean, exposed brick and the hard-wood floors glow, mellow and amber-ish, from strategically placed floor-lamps set to a timer. The ceilings are paneled in either high-end, decorative plaster or “tin”-style, embossed copper paneling. In sunrises and sunsets, the glow of the latter is beautiful . . . mesmerizing.

 

Reyes’s choice of décor is minimalist and tasteful, as suits such a naturally gorgeous living space. His aesthetic leans toward understated accents and is seemingly an extension of Reyes’s fashion sense: dark colors and earth-tones, and spare, but elegant lines that are modern, but harken to certain classic styles. Furniture and art are kept close to walls, leaving wide stretches of floor near the middles of rooms—especially the living-room—free of obstruction beyond occasional throw-rugs.

 

But against the brick walls of the living-room are no less than three sofas, one huge, curving, heather-colored sectional across from a fireplace that’s functional but which Reyes hasn’t used yet this season. The other two sofas are cozy, _Prussian_ -colored (per Reyes) loveseats set diagonally in the corners book-ending the fireplace.

 

Scott is especially fond of the loveseat at the southeast corner. On sleepless nights, he’s sat in it watching the sky turn light with deepening senses of relief and wellbeing. On occasion, Reyes has sat with him, whether as support or because of his own nightmares or sleeplessness, eventually nodding on Scott’s shoulder and under his arm: trusting and vulnerable as any child lost to hopefully sweeter dreams.

 

These moments—even just recalling them makes Scott’s heart ache in the warmest, most wonderful way. Makes _all_ of him ache in that warm-wonderful way, though . . . _hot-thrilling_ might be a more accurate qualifier for certain parts of him.

 

Smiling a little, Scott automatically relaxes as Reyes locks the front door behind them, puts down his leather backpack, and sorts the mail. Scott toes off his sneakers and steps into the flexible clog-type shoes he wears around the apartment. They’re hideous in design and color (a weird, purplish-burgundy) and the most comfortable things Scott’s ever worn or owned.

 

As he takes a moment to be mindful of how much he loves stepping into these shoes, this apartment, _his home_ , Reyes’s hands land on his biceps, firm, but gentle, and squeeze briefly.

 

Then Reyes moves past him with a chuckle, wraith-silent in his socked feet, and sans navy pea coat. His battered backpack has been left under the sturdy table near the door, next to the mail-basket. Reyes, himself, is peeling off the top half of his scrubs as he strides toward the small washer/dryer-alcove near the half-bath. Under the scrub-shirt is a black t-shirt, a little faded, but pristine and unbranded. It pulls up a bit, revealing the slightly paler tawny-copper of his waist and lower back.

 

Not up-enough, alas, to reveal that tattoo Reyes doesn’t have, Scott notices with wistful regret. Then he drags his _gaze_ up _quick_ when Reyes pauses and turns to face him, smirking-smirking-smirking. “If you were anyone else, Ryder, I’d suspect you of plotting something in all this weighty silence . . . not saying a _single_ word the entire Metro-ride home? Usually, you at least stir yourself to grumble about man-spreaders who take up two seats. There were quite a few of those, tonight, left ungrumbled-about.”

 

Blushing and digging up a lame scowl, Scott ignores the amused twinkle in Reyes’s eyes and Reyes’s . . . _Reyes_. “Oh, I noticed. It was still unnecessary, and I still hope all their balls freeze right off. But you probably get sick of hearing me mumble-rant about stupid shit and crazy-guy pet peeves while we’re on the Metro.”

 

“On the contrary. I think mumble-rants about stupid shit and crazy-guy pet peeves while we’re riding the Metro are delightful. At least when they’re _yours_. Something about the luminous and attractive scenery that comes with those rants makes them . . . not a particularly hard-sell, as these things go.” Reyes’s eyebrows lift pointedly, and his smirk becomes a surprisingly guileless grin. The sort of grin that’s definitely a stronger Scott-kryptonite than even the sly smirks he remembers from their teen-hood and the reassuring smiles he wakes up to after his steadily decreasing night-terrors.

 

Scott finds himself grinning right back. Then chuckling and blushing. “Jeez. You’re still such a shady bastard, Reyes.”

 

“And a pushover, too, while I’m at it. But still handsome and charming, all the same.” Reyes gives Scott a very debonair eyebrow-crook and near-leer, along with yesteryear’s only-half-joking overconfidence, which Scott remembers and cherishes so well. And he’s started closing the several yards of distance between them before his brain even concurs that it’s a good idea. As he gets closer, as if in slow motion, he can see Reyes’s debonair leer shift to something far less contrived and far more honest. By the time Scott’s more than halved the distance between them, Reyes’s grin has completely faded into solemnity, and his formerly-amused eyes are wide and intent.

 

It’s only when Scott’s close enough that he can smell Reyes’s aftershave—as well as coffee and hand-sanitizer, like usual—that he realizes his own grin has turned into trying to chew through his lower lip. His eyes are, also as usual, wide enough to be saucer-sections for galaxy-class starships. Or, perhaps, galaxies.

 

Looking Reyes in the eyes is always easy and difficult. Easy, because they’re _Reyes’s_ and because they’re the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen, so, _of course_ , Scott’s happily addicted to looking his impossible-to-reach fill. But it’s difficult for the same reason and many others. He remembers his mother used to say that eyes were the windows of the soul. And from the way she’d used to look into Alec Ryder’s eyes whenever they discussed things—with or without speaking aloud—or danced together, Scott had known his mother truly believed that. And that for her, staring into her husband’s soul had been an indescribable joy.

 

When Scott stares into Reyes’s bright, unshielded eyes . . . so different yet still so like the eyes of the boy Reyes had been, he stares for what feels like forever almost every time. And this time . . . that forever feels doubled. It’s long enough for Scott to take time to at last examine the now-familiar feeling that spreads throughout his being.

 

He strongly suspects the warm-welling-drowning-endless light within him that sparked when he was fifteen, laid dormant for nearly two decades, only to flare to vibrant life again in the past four months, might be the same thing that his mother had felt for his father. A big, uncontrollable brightness that never lessens, only grows larger and more intense the longer one gazes through a window into flawless and seamless recognition and understanding.

 

Into _acceptance and celebration_ without end.

 

Scott falls up and up into that shifting green and for once, he’s not afraid. But he _is_ very anxious, and says: “Your soul is beautiful and perfect and I _never_ wanna stop looking at it or at you, but . . . at the same time, you make me feel _so much, so relentlessly_ , that it’s daunting and overwhelming. And I don’t know what to do with it. What I _should_ do with it. Then I start having _other feelings_ , too, and my palms get really sweaty and gross, and . . . _blegh_.”

 

So saying, Scott places his hands on Reyes’s chest, just below his shoulders. Then, under Reyes’s surprised gaze, drags the offending palms down the front of Reyes’s t-shirt . . . lingering obviously, and maybe embarrassingly, over acres of firm, intriguing definition.

 

His now-dryish hands shake as they rove the planes of Reyes’s torso, in juddering-slow starts and hitches, and he watches them travel with huge, almost horrified eyes. They’re taking liberties he can barely comprehend beyond the almost twenty years-ache of want and need driving those liberties. _How_ , exactly, he got from a few steps beyond the shoe-caddy near the front door, to inside Reyes’s personal bubble and feeling him up under the pretext of drying his flop sweat-drenched palms is a mystery.

 

But even Scott is no longer _quite_ so skittish that he stops his exploration in pursuit of solving that mystery. Even Reyes’s intent, burning, _compelling_ gaze isn’t enough to make Scott’s yellow-streak show its face. Not when Reyes feels so warm and strong and . . . _right_. New, but familiar, too, as if Scott should’ve long-since been experienced and proficient at touching Reyes this way. And other ways, as well.

 

“Ryder . . . look at me,” Reyes says, quiet and kind, as Scott’s right hand settles over Reyes’s heartbeat and his left daringly darts down to rest lightly on Reyes’s waist. Then, his nervous, tremoring fingers anchor in Reyes’s t-shirt, clutching and bunching the worn fabric . . . but they don’t dare to press the flesh beneath it.

 

Scott still can’t quite meet Reyes’s eyes a minute later, when the other man chuckles, sounding slightly winded, and drops the shirt of his scrubs. His already-free hand comes up to brush gentle, tender fingertips along Scott’s jaw and to his chin. As he tilts Scott’s downcast face up a bit toward his own—with Scott still avoiding eye-contact like a pro—the hand that’d been holding his scrub-shirt slides between Scott’s arm and waist, and settles on his hip, then moves slowly and deliberately to the small of Scott’s back.

 

There, it rests, possessive and protective, light, but momentous.

 

And Reyes is now brushing the tip of his thumb across Scott’s lower lip: a barely-there caress that not only causes Scott to shiver and draw-in a shaky, staggered breath . . . he actually dares to meet Reyes’s gaze a moment later. If only because, surely, it’s time to at last grab or _create_ opportunity before it’s yet again too late: the trending _leit motif_ of Scott’s life, right after periodic, devastating tragedy. And especially where _Reyes Vidal_ is concerned.

 

Even though that gaze is more heated and hungrier than Scott’s ever seen, never mind aimed at _him_ , it’s still also incredibly kind and patient and affectionate. It’s old times and new times . . . the best of both, really, and Scott smiles. Tremulously, but it soon firms up. Mostly.

 

Reyes returns the smile and leans in a bit, stopping decisively well before Scott can begin worrying about messing up _another kiss_ , just like he’d borked the first.

 

“Scott,” Reyes whispers, but he sounds more breathless than ever. And even though he’s not _close_ -close, Scott isn’t sure he’s imagining the tingly-heat of Reyes’s lips waiting so near to his own. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

“Oh!” Scott practically hiccups, starting and twitching as if he’s been goosed. Then he laughs, nervous and weird, and looks down again. Or tries to. Reyes keeps Scott’s face tilted up toward his own and still brushes his thumb across Scott’s lips, as if savoring the kiss that he won’t let himself steal.

 

Before Reyes can respond to the hiccup and laugh in word or deed, Scott’s nearly broken both their arms trying to fling his own around Reyes’s neck. Then, he’s nearly broken Reyes’s _neck_ , while yanking him closer into a poorly-aimed, but very enthusiastic kiss.

 

Reyes makes a few startled-muffled sounds and even flails a bit for a few seconds . . . then, the sounds are less startled-muffled, and more pleased-muffled. The flailing becomes his arms around Scott’s waist, tight-tight-tight, pulling him flush.

 

Then Reyes is—skillfully, patiently, tenderly—gentling and somehow _disentangling_ the weird-confused kiss Scott had initiated, and turning it into a _real kiss_. One that’s even better than the kiss at the hospital, and without the rankling nuisance that had been Bain Massani’s commentary and amusement.

 

Scott holds on with both desperation and abandon as Reyes teases and taunts with his agile, talented tongue, and licks and laves Scott’s lips after nipping with playfully predatory teeth.

 

Reyes Vidal teaches Scott Ryder how to kiss, until Scott’s kiss-swollen, sensitive lips tremble and ache. Until he and Reyes are _somehow_ prone on the large, heather-colored sofa facing the cold fireplace, with Scott kneeling between Reyes’s widely-spread thighs and pinning Reyes’s left shoulder to a sofa cushion.

 

Reyes is hard—and getting harder _fast_ —which Scott knows intimately, since his left hand is grasping and working Reyes with nervous hope, but also with increasing temerity. Scott can’t stop panting because he can’t stop staring and _wanting_ , with everything he is, at the unusually flustered vision so happily at his mercy.

 

Reyes’s dilated, hooded eyes track and devour Scott’s every motion and expression, it seems . . . with temperature-raising licking of his lips and with soft, truncated rumbles from low in his chest. Each sight, and sound goes right through Scott like a bolt of pure, scorching lust. Though, he doesn’t realize that he, too, is hard, until Reyes’s warm, precise hand cups him gently through his cargo pants.

 

Scott cries out, sudden and sharp, and nearly comes in his pants. Restraining and mastering himself is neither easy or painless—it never has been—though he manages. As he mostly seems to, these days.

 

“Easy, Ryder . . . I’ve got you. It’s okay,” Reyes soothes and promises as Scott regains some equilibrium to go with his iron-clad self-control. After another couple minutes, Scott nods tersely, his eyes squinched tight-shut, and Reyes eases his already light grip further . . . then lets go. He runs his other hand comfortingly up and down Scott’s tense right thigh.

 

Scott measures and tries to control his breathing, and practices his most helpful mindfulness exercise to calm himself. He does this as even the incidental friction of his cotton boxers continues to be both unbearable and not enough. He knows opening his eyes isn’t a good move right now—just seeing Reyes, no matter what his expression, would be all it would take for Scott come until he _died._ The best thing to do is to keep “controlling” the intake, processing, and release of the air that whistles into his nostrils then immediately back out.

 

It’s almost like . . . like how he feels when on the cusp of a fugue, and he has to dig in with his fucking _fingernails_ just to keep from going off that too-familiar deep-end. . . .

 

“. . . you want, Ryder,” Reyes says, his voice still even, but thick with obvious self-restraint. Both his hands are running up and down Scott’s thighs, like calming torture. Scott wants those hands on his nearly-there-dick and enabler-balls: not helping him to come but _forcing_ him to. Wringing pleasure from him without pause or mercy, regardless of . . . everything.

 

He also wants those hands safely away from him and himself safely locked in Reyes’s spare bedroom, where he can rock and yammer at the voices in his head and let them yammer back. Let them reassure him of all the reasons why he can’t have this and will _never_ be ready for or worthy of this.

 

“Ryder? _Scott_.”

 

Scott still can’t open his eyes, but he makes an affirmative moan to let Reyes know he’s still present and accounted-for. _Accountable_. For now.

 

“What do you want, Scott? Do you want me to get you off tonight?” Reyes asks, easy and willing, as if _that’s_ not the biggest deal of Scott’s life. At least the biggest _maybe-good_ one.

 

Despite that maybe-goodness, Scott instantly shakes his head once, then follows it with: “No.”

 

Reyes’s soothing hands pause for a gentle, encouraging squeeze. “Alright. Do you want to, ah . . . keep exploring?”

 

It’s only then that Scott realizes he’s still gripping Reyes’s harder-than-ever dick in far too vise-like a way for Reyes to be enjoying it. He starts to ease that grip pursuant to letting go, stammered-whispered apologies already tumbling from his still-tingling lips.

 

Reyes’s hand lands on his wrist, light, but halting. “ _Do you_ want to keep touching me, Scott?”

 

 _I shouldn’t. You don’t have to let me_ , Scott means to say, but his tense, shaking hand relaxes . . . then tenses in a different way, reclaiming Reyes’s hard-on with almost aggressive need. With _greed_.

 

“ _Yes_. Please,” Scott whispers, barely more than an exhale. Reyes grunts, then groans, shifting his pelvis in a slow, not-quite thrust into Scott’s unhesitating, no-nonsense hold. In response, Scott, too, groans, and grips _tighter_ , attempting a series of rhythmic, sustained tugs.

 

This goes on for seconds or maybe hours. Scott can’t tell, even after he’s risked opening his eyes. He’s even lost track of his own body’s needs, once again, caught up as he is in watching Reyes come undone beneath him. Those green eyes seem to glow—they’re wide-open and more dilated than ever, locked on Scott’s face as Reyes murmurs more encouragement that’s both sweet and filthy.

 

The hands that had been soothing Scott not so long ago, are restive and graceful: the left one is running up and down Reyes’s own thigh and the right one—when Scott dares to sneak a brief peek—is shoved up under the black t-shirt, running up and down his torso with occasional breaks to tweak, tug, and twist his nipples.

 

Scott quickly re-closes his eyes as his dick starts reconsidering recent ideas about _coming and dying_. He wages another desperate battle, this one only barely successful, to not lose it utterly.

 

That he’s still stroking Reyes’s dick doesn’t make it any easier to contain himself, but once again, Scott Ryder manages. He also decides that hot-and-bothered Reyes Vidal is like some flawless, sex-magic dream, come to life and with a mission to orgasm his dreamer to death. Now, that marvel of sex-magic is permanently branded on the backs of Scott’s achy eyelids and _all_ of his very wakeful brain. . . .

 

. . . and Scott’s alright with that.

 

“Ryder!” Reyes grunts quietly after another dark, heated, hungry eternity has passed. His thrusts—there’s no doubt that’s what they are, for all that he’s clearly restraining himself, still—have become faster and sharper. Urgent and dramatic. “Ryder . . . I’m about to come—”

 

“Ohhh. . . .” Scott’s pretty sure now is also not a smart time to open his eyes either, so he ratchets them closed even tighter, still. Though he’ll probably have a bruise-y raccoon-mask after this continued abuse. “Okay.”

 

“Is that . . . is that something you _want_? As well as . . . as something you’re _ready for_?” That restraint—and strain—makes Reyes’s normally smooth voice sound brittle and hoarse.

 

“Dunno,” Scott admits, tiny and absent-sounding. _Miserable and done with himself_ , until . . . his desperate mind and heart and _need_ latch onto one thing he suddenly knows to be irrefutably true. “Dunno if I’m ready for _anything,_ Reyes. I only know that right now, I wanna make _you_ come in your pants _more_ than I’m afraid of everything else.”

 

And once again, before Reyes can respond in any way, Scott’s lowering himself rather gracelessly on top of Reyes, just like the second-half of the one-armed push-ups he’d once been king of—better at than even _Sara_ , from Basic, and on through the first couple years after his States-side convalescence. His left hand and Reyes’s dick are trapped between their hot, squirming-shimmying bodies, and _pinned_ by Scott’s.

 

He can’t even stroke, anymore, only grip and squeeze. And let his body make demands of Reyes’s, which Reyes seems eager to comply with.

 

Eyes still shut, he seeks out Reyes’s mouth for a sloppy, somewhat clumsy—though not for long—kiss that Reyes gasps into and then out of when he stiffens all over, as if electrified, then convulses and comes with breathless, groaning grunts that sound _punched_ out of him.

 

Almost instantly, Scott’s handful is a soaking mess. So’s his hand, but he doesn’t care, busy as he is murmuring his own dirty nonsense-praise at Reyes between more sloppy kisses, desperate nuzzles, and sated sighs huffed against any part of Reyes he can reach with his mouth.

 

At last, Reyes’s strung-taut body finally relaxes under him, utterly and suddenly, and Scott, too, goes limp. He’s no longer pinning Reyes but resting on him. His overheated right cheek is pressed to Reyes’s overheated right cheek. Sooner, rather than later, he manages to work his cramping, wet hand from between their bodies, wiggles circulation and feeling back into the fingers, and tucks it under Reyes’s right shoulder.

 

For a while, they simply pant in time with each other—with Scott, at least, drifting on strangely serene euphoria and zen-y endorphins.

 

Then he realizes he’s sprawled—all one hundred sixty-eight scrawny, loony, bony-ass pounds of him—on top of Reyes. Like the deadest of weights.

 

When he starts to shift sluggishly, Reyes huffs his displeasure with _that_ idea and stirs _himself_ to corral Scott’s thighs tightly with his own. Then, he wraps his arms around Scott, in case that first message wasn’t clear. His left hand settles at Scott’s mid-back, and his right on Scott’s mid-ass, and Scott snorts, feeling hot-and-bothered, himself. And vaguely bemused. He’s also still ragingly, quite painfully hard. . . .

 

He’s never been so absolutely perfect in his life.

 

After some appreciative, but also sluggish rubbing, fondling, and kneading from both of Reyes’s magic hands, Scott tucks his face in against Reyes’s neck a little, and Reyes chuckles. Then begins to hum, all sweet satisfaction and satiation. Contentment and lazy drifting.

 

“Hmm . . . what do you want _next_ , Ryder?” he murmurs, soft and warm and wet against Scott’s cheek. Scott presses his face closer to Reyes’s throat, inhaling the scent of him. Letting _himself_ drift lazily on the dreamy lassitude of home, safety, and _love_. Most of all . . . love.

 

“Mm . . . wanna . . . wanna fall ‘sleep. Jus’ like this . . . f’r a little while. . . .”

 

Reyes’s responding chuckle is sleepy, too. And _wicked_. But mostly sleepy.

 

“That can be arranged, Pathfinder,” he eventually mouths against the slow, steady pulse at Scott’s temple, before pressing a reverential, lingering kiss against that all-important rhythm.

 

Then, he lets himself drift away completely, too . . . accompanied by the home-y, familiar-intimate sound of Scott’s quiet, dead-asleep snores and occasional, dreaming sighs.

 

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> **END NOTES :**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> *Bain’s Massani’s First Rule of Holes is inspired by this quote: _“When I’m at the bottom looking up, the main question may not be ‘how do I get out of this hole?’ In reality, the main question might be ‘how do I get rid of the shovel that I used to dig it?’”_ Dr. Craig D. Lounsbrough 
> 
>  
> 
> **CREDITS :**
> 
>  
> 
> Most of the good throughout this installment is thanks to [Littleleotas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/pseuds/littleleotas)’s input, feedback, and concrit, all of it spot-on. Check out LL’s STELLAR Mass Effect Trilogy fic, [torn and tattered and crowned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982325/chapters/37282847). The denouement is thanks in large part to [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual)’s suggestion of “couch cuddles and hair kisses.” That’ll be in the next fic, but the theme of comfort/comforting worked in the form of post-coital cuddling and snuggling and groping. Basically, all I did was change it to tie in with this fic a bit better. So, if you like this fic and its ending, blame Littleleotas and the stitch. I SURE DO.
> 
>  
> 
> **Powered by :**
> 
>  
> 
> The “[Getting Rid of the Shovel](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZSuw00OZ3YtCYpaZPbAz89MhsfjfO3Y)” YouTube playlist for Scott and Reyes, regarding this fic. **Or, individually,** but still listed in the intended order:
> 
> Travis – “[As You Are](https://youtu.be/6evBAR5qG_4)”
> 
> Chris Cornell – “[Seasons](https://youtu.be/TksqEIl1uxU)”
> 
> Dresden Dolls - “[Girl Anachronism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGrqcQWRVGE).”
> 
> NIN – “[Every Day is Exactly the Same](https://youtu.be/SBci8OkV8_I)”
> 
> Dresden Dolls - “[Coin-Operated Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk7IsmkexuM)”
> 
> Chris Cornell - “[Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpMfZPAc1kg)”
> 
> Spin Doctors – “[Jimmy Olsen's Blues (New Version)](https://youtu.be/GrQCro68sRU)”
> 
> Radiohead – “[Paranoid Android](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHiGbolFFGw)”
> 
> LP – “[Lost On You](https://youtu.be/hn3wJ1_1Zsg)”
> 
> half•alive - [still feel.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOOhPfMbuIQ)”
> 
> Ursine Vulpine (feat. Annaca) – “[Wicked Game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-2hUmoaPfU)”
> 
> Halsey – “[I Walk The Line](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7au4SbqGBQ)”
> 
> The Heartless Bastards – “[Only For You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l4alp0De8Y)”
> 
> Tedeschi Trucks Band – “[Do I Look Worried](https://youtu.be/eXsrWIuCB_8)”
> 
> Dave Matthews Band – “[Where Are You Going](https://youtu.be/qjykrjAS5bQ)”
> 
> Tedeschi Trucks Band – “[Sweet And Low](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMufdpQrU0)”
> 
> Brass Against, (ft. Amanda Brown) - “[Gasoline (Audioslave Cover)](https://youtu.be/waHyVStowB4)”
> 
> Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “[Maps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIIxlgcuQRU)”
> 
> Plus, [The Dresden Dolls's Greatest Hits | The Best Of The Dresden Dolls](https://youtu.be/tOy6R537mc4), as frequent background tunes/inspiration.
> 
> [TUMBLE ME](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


End file.
